India wants to monitor Google and Skype as well

After recent reports of the Indian government’s intentions to strong arm RIM into compromising the security of its BlackBerry devices, it looks like the country is leaving no stone unturned. Recent reports state that India is also requesting for the same permission to private data from services like Skype, Twitter, Facebook and Google.

In accordance to the recently implemented IT Act, websites and service providers are required to provide government security agencies with information on private accounts, including passwords, on request without a court order. If the companies don’t give in to the government’s demands we’ll probably see a ban of their services in the country, which could be the case since these services don’t like sharing private information without a court order.

But such a massive ban would probably lead to a lot of unhappy citizens, though it would also encourage the growth of alternative services that play by the rules of the government. What would you do in a world without Facebook, Google, Skype, and Twitter?